Imagine A Toyota High-Performance Brand Taking On...BMW M?

For an automaker as large as Toyota, money shouldn’t be an issue here, but aside from TRD (Toyota Racing Development), the Japanese brand doesn’t have a dedicated high-performance brand. Yet. According to Australia’s CarAdvice, Toyota 86 head engineer, Tetsuya Tada, stated he wants Toyota to develop an in-house rival to BMW M, Audi Quattro and Mercedes-AMG divisions. There are different ways this could happen, according to Tada. For example, Toyota could deepen its relationship with Gazoo Racing.

“BMW and M and Quaid and Quattro GMbH used to be like the Toyota relationship with Gazoo – it wasn’t really one body, it was two separate things,” Tata stated. “But because of the time and the continuous effort, now they are together. So, I’m wishing that Toyota puts effort continuously, and then somebody later, Toyota and Gazoo will be one body.” Tada is also an internal force pushing for Toyota to finally build a reborn Supra, a car of which he’s a longtime enthusiast. He’s also a fan of the old Celica GT-Four, the immensely successful rally racer, and would very much like to also see “a new Celica GT4 – turbo, four-wheel drive. (It’s a) really fun car and really fast. And (it was fast on) every type of road. (A new one is definitely) one of my dreams.”